[Sidenote: Arguments for coercion of the several members.] § 77. On the other side, it has always been argued that though contracts for a definite period need not be renewed, there are many contracts intended by their very nature to be permanent, and which are so far-reaching in their consequences that for any one party to abandon them is a profound injustice to the remainder, whose lives have been instituted and regulated upon these contracts[183:1]. Let us take an illustration from everyday life. From the contract of marriage there arise such important consequences that a dissolution does not permit the contracting parties to resume their original life; and therefore in all higher civilizations legal divorce has been made very difficult, and secession by either party without legal sanction a grave offence. In like manner it was argued that the several cities had grown rich and powerful under the League. The lives of its members had been sacrificed to defend every city attacked; the funds of the League had been spent on each as they were needed. Was it just that after growing and thriving upon these conditions any one of them should, for its own convenience, repudiate the bond and regard all the accruing benefits as a private property, to be disposed of to any strange Power? [Sidenote: Cases of doubtful or enforced adherence.] To answer this question and to adjudicate between the litigants is hard enough, and yet I have stated the simplest difficulty. For in the case of many of the additions to the Achæan League a revolution had first taken place, the existing government had been overthrown, and then the new majority had placed themselves under the protection of the Confederation. If the old rulers returned to power, were they bound by the Government which had coerced them, and which they regarded as revolutionary? Others, again, had been constrained by the presence of an armed force, and by threats of imminent danger if they did not accept the League's protection. When circumstances changed, could they not argue that they were coerced, and that an apparently free _plébiscite_ was wrung from them against their better judgment? [Sidenote: Various internal questions.] § 78. Such were the profoundly interesting and thoroughly modern problems which agitated the minds of men in post-Alexandrian Greece. There were moreover various internal questions,--whether new cities which joined should have equal rights with the original members; whether large cities should have a city vote only equal to the vote of the smallest; whether the general Assembly should be held in turn at each of the cities, or in the greatest and most convenient centre, or in a place specially chosen for its insignificance, so that the Assembly might be entirely free from local influences? All these questions must have agitated the minds of the founders of the Swiss Union and the American Union, for the problems remain the same, however nations may wax and wane.